The bond of the disfigured
Otherworldly, majestic, imposing – there were many words to describe the sheer breath-taking sight of Jupiter's orange light, in which the mechanical fortress of the late Alad V, the Corpus Gas City, was seemingly glowing on it's own, throwing back the light, reflecting it on it's large windows and metallic surfaces.
Wouldn't it be for the fog of the gas-planet, one could possibly see the fortress from the orbit of Jupiter, due to it's sheer size and reflective surface. That was another impressive fact.
But not for everyone.
Not everyone connected the sight of the city with positive words, not everyone was amazed or in awe of it. Not everyone was eager to return to it.
She wasn't.
And yet here she was again, the disfigured beauty among the Tenno, the broken female in the broken Warframe, standing atop one of the many catwalks of the city, staring down at the gas-planet below them, and a tower not too far in the distance.
A tower that would always, and this time again, wake bad memories within her. It was the tower she had been tortured in, the tower in which the Valkyrie's wings had been cut, where the majestic being was turned into a raging berserker.
It was where "Valkyrie" had died, and Valkyr had been born.
To be back here, in this city, where all of this had happened, where the Corpus had destroyed her body and mind and had changed her forever, she felt something akin to sickness, the only place in the whole system where she experienced something else but rage.
Something that may as well be fear.
But she couldn't have refused when Lotus had called out to her, sending her on what was a routine Corpus extermination mission, knowing how she desired to rid the world of the Corpus, the very same beings that had done this to her body and mind.
The Tenno's clawed fingers curled around the trigger of her newest weapon, a weapon she deemed as brutal as she was, the flak cannon named Drakgoon. If firing shrapnel at the enemy up close wasn't brutal, she didn't know what was.
But there was no need to, the extermination had already been successful a long time ago, but if mere minutes or hours ago, she couldn't tell. She and her group had been on their way to extraction when she had spotted the tower in the distance, memories that haunted her resurfacing anew, stopping her.
Thankfully, the group she was with had been very understanding so far. Even as she stopped dead in her tracks and walked over to the end of the catwalk to get a better look at the tower in the distance, neither of them had attempted to stop or berate her.
They understood that she still had ties to this place, knew her story.
A supportive hand laid onto her shoulder, not even scaring her by how surprisingly it had appeared. She turned her head a little to face the one at her side, finding that it was the Saryn-type Tenno that had accompanied her countless times before.
Valkyr nodded, reassuring Saryn that she was fine. But she saw that Saryn thought otherwise.
The berserker sent a glance past Saryn at the other two members of their group, the Rhino and the Ember Prime. Neither of them did anything, they just stood there, looking back at her, letting her know that they understood her feelings.
Valkyr felt touched, knowing that the other Tenno were always there to back her up, no matter what she was like or what she looked like.
But sometimes, there were things that one had to do alone, and this was one of them.
Sharing a last glance with Saryn, she let the other female know with her gaze alone that it was time to separate. The Tenno in the snake-like Warframe nodded in understanding, knowing that Valkyr needed closure on something, and turned towards the other two members of their group, showing them with a single gesture that they'd go.
Valkyr, however, wouldn't. Not before she had been there a last time. There, in that tower, where everything ended and began at the same time.
She just felt she had to visit that place a last time.
But her body just wouldn't move, frozen to the spot in the feeling that may as well be fear, afraid of what she might find in the tower that she had destroyed herself when she had escaped her confinements.
It would forever remain the only place in the system she was truly scared of. Not even the Derelicts, or the recently discovered Infested that they had classified as the 'J2000-Golem', codenamed 'Lephantis', had ever managed to wake something else but rage within her.
But this tower, this mere structure, pathetically and secluded, placed on the outskirts of the Gas City, woke fear inside her.
Perhaps it was for the better if one did not care about it's origins, after all. But even though she knew better, she just had to return there, one last time.
To the place she died and was reborn, and where Alad V had found his demise at her hands. Where justice had turned to anger, and the Valkyrie had her wings cut.
Valkyr turned her head again, looking behind her. As she had hoped, her companions were gone by now, leaving her alone to face her past.
She wouldn't have it any other way.
Metal hit metal as she let her weapons fall to the ground, discarding of them for now. With no Corpus around, there was no one to use them against her, and they were just a dead weight on her way into the past.
That aside, with them lying in between the tower and the extraction point, there was no way she was going to miss them on her way to extraction and accidentally leave them behind. And even if someone came to pick them up and use them against her, would she care? She wouldn't die, not even by a direct shot of Drakgoon.
She couldn't die, the rage within her keeping her alive. And she wouldn't die, not before the last Corpus was annihilated. That was the promise that she had made to herself the day that she had been reborn as Valkyr.
Drakgoon hit the ground first, followed by her Twin Gremlins. There wasn't any melee weapon on her that she could add to the pile, with how she preferred her own claws to rip apart both flesh, shields, armor and machinery, though she considered to pick up the newly researched Venka soon, a set of extendable claws attached to the back of the hand, a weapon that Lotus had designed.
But there was no need for any weapon at all, actually. Her entire body was one, a one-man-army to be accurate. The Corpus had made sure to turn her into a living, nearly unstoppable weapon of mass destruction. Alad V had, though he had most likely never expected her to turn on him.
With her weapons, at least those that she could discard, on the ground to her feet, she stepped over the small pile and onto the edge of the catwalk. She spread her arms to the sides, spread her claws, stood in all her height at the very edge of the platform.
And then, let gravity do it's work.
The wind howled in her ears, picking up volume as her body first fell forward, and then over the edge of the platform, free falling towards the gas-planet below, down into the beauty of the orange fog.
This was the way that Alad had gone, the path she had sent him on. Though he had been dead by then already, she had thrown his body over the edge of a platform to fall into the depths of Jupiter, hoping to never see him again.
Maybe just as much as she never wished to see her own disfigured body again.
But, as much as she wished that it was that easy, it wouldn't end there today.
Finally, after seconds of free-falling, spiraling towards the planet below, she unleashed the ripline that the Corpus had added to her body, let it shoot forth from it's spot at her wrist. It didn't miss it's target, never had with how good she had become at utilizing her body.
It hit the railing of a catwalk, stuck to it, and changed the trajectory of her body, sending it upwards instead of down. Just at the right point of her flight, she retracted the ripline, the velocity alone carrying her up and over the railing, back onto the catwalk.
And from there, it was just a matter of jumps before she stood in front of the tower that all of it had begun in. And it hadn't changed a bit since she had escaped it, the tower abandoned with her escape, and Alad V's death.
The door, made of solid steel, lay discarded to the side of the entrance, ripped apart from her claws, just like she had left it. The laboratory inside the tower wasn't in any better state.
As she stepped over the remains of a machine - though it may as well have been a Moa once, it was kind of hard to tell with how destroyed beyond recognition it was - she entered the laboratory, the place where she had once been kept and tortured in.
It was exactly as she remembered it, exactly like she had left it. The walls were ripped apart, the large gashes obviously made by claws, her claws, with wires protruding from them. The tower had never been taken off the power supply system, and thus, the cut up wires still emitted sparks, white to bluish in color, ever so often.
Old pain and anger immediately resurfaced as the suppressed memories of the things that had happened in there, of how things had changed in there – how she had changed in there – came alive again in a way that was almost too real for her taste. Too recent.
She shouldn't have come, she knew that. The wounds were still too fresh. They had not become scars yet, were too deep and too recent. But would they ever 'heal'? Would they ever come to a point where she was no longer tortured by the nightmares of needles and syringes, of cables and lights? These awful lights that they had pointed at her ever so often?
She damned the Corpus for those things ever so often. Whenever she closed her eyes, she'd see these images, the awful images of what they had done to her. They had ruined even meditation for her, the way that Tenno followed to achieve inner peace – the last time she had closed her eyes to mediate, the most gruesome pictures had appeared before her inner eye, accompanied by phantom pain.
Part of her Warframe's chest being removed. Parts of it's arms being ripped off. And, what had finally woken her from that nightmare: The pain and gore of half of the mask that was part of her helmet being surgically removed from her head by a machine while she had been fully awake and struggling.
Her clawed hand rose to the remaining half of the helmet. Hit the strange metallic construct that they had added to it, allowing her to stabilize her head despite the damage caused to her systems by the removal of half of her helmet's mask. These Corpus didn't know a thing about Warframe technology, of the way it was connected to the Tenno inside it.
Slowly, as the phantom pain of this gruesome memory began to subside, Valkyr lowered her claw and stared at it. Experimentally moved her clawed fingers, each on it's own, then all at once. The box that was attached to her arm like a gauntlet, though with a large rod impaling her actual arm to fasten it, hummed with each movement.
Despite hating the Corpus for what they've done to her, despite loathing her new appearance, the remains of her once so beautiful Warframe, she could not deny that the new powers that she had were... enticing.
So very fitting for who she was now, for what they had turned her into. These powers were not that of a gracious Valkyrie, the so called exalted warriors among the Warframe, but that of a berserker. Valkyries were known for being stoic and neutral, following the path of absolute justice. She couldn't do that anymore.
But then again, she was no Valkyrie anymore. She was Valkyr, the disfigured beauty. The berserker. The Valkyrie that had it's wings cut.
So these new powers were surprisingly fitting for her. A reflection of her now scarred state of mind, her insanity. Of the berserker that had been woken within the Valkyrie. No longer was her path that of justice, but anger at anything and everything. A path of hatred.
And this path of hatred guided her just like the path of justice had done. If not even a bit more efficient.
Of course, Lotus was her real guide. Of course, Lotus always directed her to new goals and new battles. But once in the mission, there was no Lotus guiding her. It was just her own rage, just her own bloodthirsty insanity. Lotus wasn't there to support her, other than with the occasional reminder or warning.
Just her own rage, guiding her from enemy to enemy. Her own rage, numbing out her pain and fueling her powers. Making her mercilessly kill what came into her path. Rage. It was the thing that had guided her out of the laboratories of Alad V and into the soothing arms of the Lotus.
Was what had kept her fighting for earth when the Grineer tried to destroy the forests in what Lotus had called the Cicero Crisis. What had filled her when Darvo, the only Corpus she was willing to somewhat trust due to him abandoning what he was and meaning it, had been kidnapped by his own kind and she was faced with the newest creation of the Corpus, the Hyena Pack – Now heaps of scrap metal after what she and the other few Tenno she had been working with on that mission had left of them.
It had been her own rage that had given her the strength to tear through the Oxium Ospreys when they first appeared, gathering the Oxium to aid Lotus in the creation of the Zephyr Warframe, which proved to be a helpful ally in missions on planets.
It was her rage that had fueled her insanity to the point where she had used a ripline to pull an unstable Fomorian Power Core through the shipyards on Ceres when the shields of her and squad members had been exhausted. Rage, in which she had defended the cryopod of the Hydroid Warframe when it rose from the oceans of earth, until the Warframe with the dominion over water awoke from it's sleep and killed all Grineer in sight.
Only her rage.
Ripping apart a Grineer's chest armor with her bare clawed hands. Piercing a Corpus' shields, helmet and head with nothing but the tip of her talons. Shredding a whole pack of Infested with her screams.
Infested. Of the things out there, she was more like them than anything else. Didn't feel like joining them anytime soon, but the resemblance was there, saw them herself each time she saw her disfigured face. More or less mindless, guided by the most primal instincts, attacking other things with claws and the need to obliterate and destroy.
At least she didn't feel like consuming her enemies, creating or becoming part of a hivemind. She had enough trouble with her own scarred mind, and having another one invading that carried the will of many seemed like the last thing she wanted.
A sudden movement caught her attention. The rubble in the middle of the laboratory was moving. Caught off guard, she unleashed the energy claws and narrowed her sight on it, watching as a hatch underneath the rubble tried to open up, sparks shooting up into the air as it failed.
The energy had never been cut from the tower, she reminded herself, this was just a response of the destroyed tower to her having entered.
She was right. Only not in the way she had hoped.
It was a reaction of her entrance into the tower. A reaction to her being a Tenno, no matter how scarred or disfigured. The little lights that weren't broken came on, sparks shot out of the consoles as they came alive again. A broken screen, hanging loosely by a single cable from the wall, tilted and askew, large cracks running through the glass, lit up.
And as she saw what it displayed, the energy claws extended further and she arched her back, vision turning red in deepest hatred as she found herself suddenly unable to contain her anger. A scream escaped her, one of a cornered animal that threatened the thing that scared her.
The screen showed his face. His ugly visage, which she had ripped apart herself, leaving nothing of it back before she had kicked it over the edge of a platform to fall into the depths of Jupiter.
Alad V.
"Tenno? Can you – Can you hear me?" he began in his annoying voice, a mischievous and playful tone as he tilted his head a little, the message laggy and distorted, "You've been a naughty little betrayer – naughty little betray - betrayer, haven't..."
The message cut off, the image freezing up, before suddenly turning to static. She tilted her head a little, let her vision move back to the still jamming hatch, wondered if it was connected to the message. And relaxed a bit.
It was just that. Just a recorded message. A ghost of the past that had, unbeknownst to everyone, remained. Not even meant for her. Alad V wasn't alive anymore, she had taken care of that herself. If he had been alive and it was a live feed, he would've addressed her directly. He always did.
In his eyes, she wasn't a 'betrayer' like the other Tenno, but the 'prototype'. The failed creation. Just a step on his path to the creation of his perfect creature, Zanuka. He would've addressed her as 'prototype' in his maniacal glee. He had always done that.
He couldn't do that anymore. This was just a message placed in here in case that a Tenno ever walked in. A short glance back to the door confirmed it, the small white lines of a scanner in the destroyed doorframe. It had probably scanned her for Warframe Technology when she had entered, meaning she had accidentally triggered the message.
The noise of rubble being moved made her twirl back to the hatch. After continually forcing itself against part of the structure that held up the ceiling before her destruction of the tower, the rubble had finally given in and fallen over, allowing the hatch to open at least nearly completely – until the hand of a deceased Corpus Crewman got stuck in it. It jammed for the final time. And, with an explosion of smoke and sparks, ceased working once and for all.
But it was open. Open for whatever was inside to be released.
Her claws extended again, warm energy coating her fingers. With a great deal of caution, she slowly approached the hatch that had opened to get a glimpse inside, ready to deal with whatever Corpus monstrosity she'd be faced with.
A metallic foot appeared from the hatch, trying to find ground to support itself on. Valkyr froze up, gently moved her talons a bit, ready to throw herself at the new foe. It emerged fully, and Valkyr prepared to jump.
Stopped out of curiosity and surprise when she saw the state that the 'Corpus monstrosity' was in.
With anger, she had recognized it. The thing she had been the prototype for. She had seen the remains of the thing that the Tenno in the Rhino-type Warframe had left. This left her with the question how it had survived, how it was alive after Rhino had literally ripped it in two.
Though alive wasn't exactly the right word for Zanuka.
It was but a mere mangled, crippled thing. One of it's legs was bend in a weird angle, it missed large parts of it's armor, exposing wires and an endoskeleton. Entire parts seemed to be missing from the exposed machinery, and it's head was tilted by at least 50° degree to the right, giving it a weird, and somewhat horrifying appearance.
By the time that she finally noticed it's gray color, Valkyr had come to realize that this was not Zanuka. Not the real one, at least. Different proportions, a different color scheme, different equipment.
She shuddered as one weird thought invaded her – what she was seeing before herself was she herself. A newer prototype, at least. Closer to the final Zanuka, which Rhino had destroyed. A cold chill went down her Warframe as she realized that, while the Corpus had been working on her, a Warframe they intended to become a new weapon, they had also been building this in the same laboratory, using parts from other Warframes to create this abomination. They had planned to get rid of whichever method seemed less efficient, which would've clearly been her.
All her anger was suddenly gone. All the rage she had never thought to be separated from her simply disappeared as she noticed that the Zanuka Prototype before her was not working correctly.
She took in it's broken state as she approached, watched it twitch and shriek, and though it remained focused on her, it never made an attempt to attack – whether it simply couldn't, or didn't want to, she didn't know, and would probably never know.
Kneeling in front of it to inspect the broken prototype closer, she found it staring at her. It made soft whirring noises as it tilted it's head to follow her movements, and little did she know that the broken Zanuka was scanning her at that moment in an attempt to figure out how much of a threat she was.
The broken beast twitched as Valkyr rose a clawed hand, making her hesitate, but not flinch. She knew it wouldn't attack her. With a gentleness she would have not thought herself to have, a clawed finger traced along the armor of the other prototype, making sure to avoid it's damages like they were open wounds. The lab had come down on it when she had destroyed it in her rage, but the hatch had protected it. The missing parts and damages weren't from the ceiling falling down on it.
They were from experiments. This broken beast had been subject to experiments as well, experiments she remembered to be executed on herself, remembering them way too vividly. Some of it's parts – without a doubt those that gave it the powers of the Warframes it was made of – had been removed entirely, probably to be used in a different Zanuka, a newer model, probably the 'final one', even.
Her finger sled down it's side, reaching one of the legs of the Corpus machine.
'Zanuka Hunter' it read in black and white on the sleek, gray armor along it's only working front leg, making her shudder at the thought that she had just found the prototype for what she had heard about from other Tenno via communication – Zanuka-like machines attacking them out of nowhere at seemingly random spots in Corpus territory. Some of them had even sworn to have heard the voice of Alad V. Lotus had noticed a pattern – all of these Tenno had chosen to work with the Grineer against Corpus at one point, forced to do so to uphold the balance in the universe.
She glanced over to the broken screen that was still showing static. It seems she had figured out what they had been hearing. A recorded message send to the Zanuka Hunter – Harvester, as some had dubbed them, as they hunted down Tenno and took them in captivity – in question via communication, for them to exclaim.
Alad V had foreseen his death, she knew that now. Had seen through all his madness that he had been cornered by the Tenno, Corpus and Grineer alike. He had prepared those monsters to hunt down the 'betrayers' if he were to die.
An emergency protocol, meant to get revenge on the Tenno from beyond the grave.
Turning to the Zanuka Hunter prototype – without a doubt the very first Zanuka Hunter – before her, she took in it's damages anew. Couldn't help but flinch as she felt the phantom pain of the experiments performed on her. Again felt her armor being ripped off. The pain of being stabbed and injected with things. Felt the unbearable pain of half of her mask being ripped off.
Her first, albeit weird, thought had been right. This thing was just like her. Had gone through the same thing. But it wasn't made by 'only' sacrificing one Tenno. Many Tenno had to give their life for this monster to be created, countless Warframes being taken apart and reassembled into this disfigured creature of twisted metal and machinery.
A Zanuka that wasn't quite Zanuka. The Hunter version was weaker than the original, but by no means less dangerous.
This one was broken.
An odd thought struck her as she gently sled the back of her clawed hand over the beast's head. She was sympathizing with it. With what was Zanuka, the reason she had been tortured for and experiment on. But this wasn't Zanuka. Was, just like her, a disfigured experiment, a prototype, used for the same stupid purpose. An unfortunate being made of many that the sick Alad V had turned into a disfigured version of it's former selves on his quest for 'the ultimate weapon'. How many Warframes were in that prototype before her? How many of her fallen comrades were in it, begging for release?
And revenge?
It was that moment that Valkyr began to call the Zanuka Hunters 'the suffering ones'. Beings made of countless Warframe parts, used for the wrong purpose, against the path of justice that their former owners had chosen. Warframe parts, being tortured by being continued to use after death, unable to pass on into the void of death.
And she was one of them. She wasn't really that different. They were what she would've turned into.
If not for her rage.
Aside from her being one Warframe that had been tinkered with, large parts removed and replaced with Corpus technology, and 'the suffering ones' being many Warframes turned into one beast, it was only her rage that had led her down a different path.
They both were monsters, both she and that prototype she found herself gently holding onto in an attempt of comforting it. She could feel the rage that resided deep within the Warframe parts of the prototype, the need for revenge. The same thing she was after. The same thing that denied her death and made her into one angel-turned-monster that was now out for revenge. Revenge on those which had turned them into what they were.
The thing that had sent them down on the cruel path of revenge and rage, making them undead monsters. Shadows of their former selves. The cruel twist of fate in their unearthly lives.
She tightened her grip on the monster that was so much like her. Comforted it the way that she wished someone would comfort her. She didn't want it to become like her. Didn't want the restless Warframe parts to become as much of a rage-driven monster like she was. Couldn't give them Alad's death, since she had killed him already.
Her right claw sled over the armor of the mechanical beast, traced one of the many black lines on it until it reached a large hole in it's back. The very core of the Zanuka Hunter was exposed there, glowing weakly with whatever little energy the beast had left.
Gently, one of her talons touched it. Just lightly running over the weak core. The beast was vulnerable. Had no way of defending itself. Valkyr was in full control.
And for once, didn't like it at all. Didn't enjoy the taste of having full power of her victim's fate.
Nonetheless, she withdrew her hand a little, just enough so that the energy that erupted from it seconds later, coating her hand once more in the energy claw, wouldn't immediately pierce it. Now, the prototype was to her very mercy. With just one movement of her hands, she could do that for it which was denied for her, could end it's pitiful suffering once and for all and release the Warframes used within it into the void of death. Free them from their struggle. Just like she wanted to be freed.
The energy claw slowly reached for the core. Brushed it, only very lightly, and yet got a reaction out of the beast that was not unlike a powerful twitch, nearly throwing her off her position by it's head.
The mechanical beast was not willing to die. Not because of the purpose it had been created for. Not because it had any reason to be alive.
It didn't want to die because it would mean that it was not getting it's revenge on Alad. For just the moment of it's powerful twitch, Valkyr had felt it, the aura of the scorning Warframes within it. Warframes that were ready to stray from their path of justice to follow the same road she had taken.
Valkyr hesitated. Her energy claw was mere inches away, and yet she could, for the first time since her transformation into the disfigured beast that she was, not help but hesitate when it came to killing something associated with the Corpus – Darvo aside, but she had never seen a Corpus in him, nor any danger. He was, much like her, forced to be what he was, and unable to change it, no matter how much he wanted it. Didn't mean she liked him.
The beast made it's first actual noise, letting out something that sounded akin to a soothing coo, an attempt to calm her down. She looked down to the head of the crippled beast. Found it once more staring directly at her. She reciprocated the glance. They stared at each other for a moment.
She closed her eyes and stabbed her energy claw into the prototype.
No matter how much she felt it twitch after the initial stab, during which her energy claw had immediately dissolved, she did not open her eyes again. Did not open them until the last bit of 'life' had left the mechanical beast, until it had stopped moving and thrashing, and had become motionless. Still.
As she opened her eyes, it was no longer staring at her. The core had stopped to glow, her hand curled around it. It was undamaged, as she had intended – a core usually proved to be explosive if going unstable – but the machinery around it was destroyed. The Hunter prototype wouldn't get up again.
This 'suffering one' didn't suffer anymore like it had been moments before.
A few minutes passed after she pulled her claw out, and yet had she not moved from her spot at the mechanical beast's side. The laboratory around her didn't seem as hostile anymore. She felt no fear thinking of the tower anymore.
The prototype had shown her that she had nothing to regret or fear there anymore.
She gently rose from her position, brushed the dirt off her disfigured Warframe. Many beings thought Tenno were emotionless creatures guided by the Lotus, but she was the best example that Tenno weren't just that. She was giving into the rage. Had shown sympathy and compassion to the suffering beast.
Tenno weren't emotionless. They were perfectly capable of feeling emotions, but were trained not to.
But even training had it's end. Even for them, there was a point where all the training didn't help anymore, and they lost their mind. She had lost her mind.
The ground beneath her feet groaned when she made her way to the broken door, dragging the 'corpse' of the Hunter prototype behind her, pulling it through rubble and Corpus corpses. She wouldn't leave that poor thing there, it had to go to a better place. Somewhere where it belonged.
In the door of the tower, she stopped. Looked back over her shoulder into the broken chamber that had been the place of her descent into insanity, the birthplace of Valkyr and the broken Hunter prototype.
She glanced up to the ceiling, weak from the lack of supporting structure.
A well-aimed ripline brought the ceiling down once and for all, and as she turned and dragged the broken mechanical beast along the catwalks, she heard the tower give in behind her, collapsing into itself. Just like she wanted it to be. That place of her nightmares had to be gone once and for all. It was part of her path to her own freedom. Eliminating the Corpus – aside from Darvo, unless he proved to be an enemy, after all, which she highly doubted – was another one. Alad V's death had been one.
Her path wasn't over yet.
The way from the tower to the extraction point proved to be longer than the other way around, but only because she was forced to follow the catwalks, instead of swinging herself over the large drops down to the planet, with the Hunter being dragged by her.
When she finally reached it, she dropped the beast's unmoving body to the ground and stared down at it. She knew how to release the parts for good once and for all. A space burial, a proper one. Lotus wouldn't disagree with that.
Valkyr gently kneeled next to the remains of the thing that was just like her. Gently brushed a hand along it's sleek surface. The rage had yet to come back, which by itself was impressive. This had to be the longest time since her transformation and the death of Alad that she wasn't feeling anger all the time. That there was something else in the mind of the berserker, another emotion being able to overrule the pure rage.
She felt a tug in her chest. Shuddered. Her constant rage had come to a stop for a second – she had granted someone like her the release she was denied – and was replaced by something akin to happiness. Not that she could tell, she had long forgotten how happiness felt. Unbeknownst to her, her right hand went for her chest, hesitated to touch it – and curled into a fist. She could not feel the release she had granted. She could not die.
Sometimes, she felt more like she was the real Zanuka. Not the one that Rhino destroyed. Not the Hunters out there. Not the Hunter prototype. She. She was Zanuka. She was the only surviving prototype, and the most superior creation of Alad V out there.
She was Zanuka. The prototype that had surpassed the original.
What a sick sense of humor fate had – if she was Zanuka, then Zanuka, Alad V's creation, had killed him.
She rose from her position, felt a whole new level of sick excitement and amusement flowing through her. The thought of having killed Alad thrilled her even more now.
No, she wasn't Zanuka. Being Zanuka would've meant to be mindless and follow Alad's will. But she could as well be Zanuka, for she was the dominant creation for the project, able to outshine all of them in brutality, agility and power.
She wasn't a Valkyrie anymore, had lost her wings. She wasn't a normal Tenno anymore, had strayed from the path of justice. She wasn't Zanuka, had not become Alad's weapon.
She was Valkyr, the disfigured beauty among the Tenno.
Turning away from the broken mechanical beast, she rolled her neck, prepared herself for extraction. Had plans, many plans, on how to continue from this point on. Had to prepare a space burial for the restless Warframes within the prototype, to release them from their suffering, and spare them the path of hatred she had followed.
After that, so she swore to herself, she would once more chase the Corpus down. But not only that. Her goal wasn't to only get rid of the Corpus out there anymore. She would hunt down each and every last 'suffering one', each and every Zanuka Hunter. Much like the other purpose in her life, the annihilation of the Corpus, with the help of Lotus and the other Tenno.
She would hunt down the 'suffering ones', and would make sure that no one would have to suffer anymore like she had to. She would release, with the help of the other Tenno and Lotus, all of the tormented restless Warframes from the Zanuka Hunters, and would free them part for part so that they could find their peace.
And destroying all Zanuka Hunters out there brought her closer to her goal of annihilating the Corpus, anyways.
Static buzzed in her head all of sudden. An incoming transmission from Lotus, directed at her. Valkyr paused, glanced down at the pitiful remains of the Zanuka Hunter prototype. Balled her clawed hands to fists. Accepted the transmission.
"Tenno, I have located you still within the Corpus Gas City on Jupiter." echoed the Lotus' voice through her head, and Valkyr nodded silently to herself, "New Corpus have appeared to scout the area."
Lotus hesitated, and Valkyr knew why. Lotus knew her destructive and brutal tendencies, knew who she was talking to, and what she had to expect.
"You know what to do."
The transmission ended without another word, but Valkyr didn't need another word. She did indeed know what to do. And she knew that Lotus did not approve of her brutality. But the Lotus also knew she was most efficient at killing the Corpus.
Lotus knew what monster she was unleashing.
The berserker turned away from extraction, back to the city. In the distance, she could already hear the shouts of the Corpus. Her gaze trailed down to the heap of metal that the Hunter prototype was. It would have to wait. Her venture would continue first, the elimination of the Corpus until the moment that her rage would end once and for all.
As she passed the pile of weapons she had dropped earlier, she picked them back up and returned them to the spots on her body, even though there was no need to. She didn't need these weapons, and was still very much assured of it.
Maybe even more so than before.
The journey to the tower she had been 'born' – or rather 'made' – in, hadn't been for naught. Not only had she realized that she wasn't the only one suffering, but she had come to terms with it. Had begun to embrace it.
The nightmares would still haunt her.
She heard a Corpus shouting down the corridor she had entered, spotted a small group of them raising her weapons at her. Her insane side chuckled inside her head with glee, especially as she saw one of the Corpus run for the console. He began to type furiously, something she watched calmly. The others had opened fire on her, but most of the shots bounced harmlessly off the thick armor of her Warframe, the weak remains of her once powerful shields of it drained in seconds.
The doors suddenly shut, locked down, an alarm blaring throughout the corridors of the section of the city. The disfigured beauty tilted her head a little, let out something akin to a sigh in her head. Corpus. They never learn. They never understand.
She pulled the Drakgoon off her back, dropped it unceremoniously to the ground instead of firing it. It would only get in the way. And she wouldn't need the Twin Gremlins. She would be doing this her style, especially after what she had learned about herself in the tower.
Stupid Corpus. They just don't understand.
She let her upper body fall forward, embraced the insanity and the rage that flew through her veins.
They don't lock Valkyr into a room with them.
She felt the hysteria flowing through her in one cold wave, energy claws extending from her wrists down. The Corpus ceased to fire as they noticed something was happening to her, lowered their weapons and exchanged what appeared to be confused glances.
The leader never saw her coming flying at him in a quick leap.
They're locked in there with VALKYR!
Outside the room, a small squad of Corpus approached the door with caution, their leader gesturing them to continue on. They knew the Tenno was in there with their most capable squad, knew that the Tenno should not stand a chance. Thought that, at least.
Until a claw burst through the door, shredding the metal and bending it out of the way, allowing one long and skinny arm to force itself through the hole. A gruesome stench hit the troop as the hole was opened up, a smell that they noticed even through their helmets, invading their senses, making them feel sick.
The arm swung wildly around, forcing the hole further open with it's claws. One of the crewmen stumbled backwards, losing his weapon as he came to realize his life was over. The leader of the squad, standing closest to the door, felt his legs give in, landed on his butt and slowly crawled away as he understood that their calculations had been wrong.
The Tenno appeared from the hole. Her tall and skinny body in the disfigured and broken Warframe, with long limbs that were covered in Corpus technology – the leader of the troop had heard of the particular Tenno. Wished it really had just been a horror story.
Her broken and disfigured Warframe, tinted in black and a deep orange, was coated in another color. Red. Scarlet red stains upon it's female body. Dripped in thin streams from her arms and wrists, but not her large energy claws.
Beyond the Tenno, through the hole, an image of gore and defeat. Of death, and revenge. A room tinted in scarlet. This wasn't the noble Tenno in the Valkyrie-type Warframe that Alad V had managed to get his hands on. This was one dark angel of death.
Valkyr stepped up to the leader of the group, completely ignoring the other Corpus of the group waving their weapons at her. One could see that, in the tower, she had learned to embrace what she had become, that she had learned to embrace her insanity and brutality, her thirst for Corpus blood, in her calm and yet so threatening movements.
The nightmares would still haunt her.
But she'd be roaming them as what she was now, as what she had learned herself to be in the tower. No longer a victim of those memories. No longer as the victim of these hellish memories.
But as the monster.
They built her anew...